I’m just trying to think about everything that’s happened relating to this job between now and the last part…

Received a cheque in the post for the deposit, which was nice

Made some prototype corbels

Got some stuff on order

Ooh, ooh, the massive cove cutter came from MLCS (can you tell I’m excited about that?)

I made a couple of jobs too – some ‘chicken proof’ kitchen cabinets, provençal style, antiqued, with chicken wire doors, and just finished a king size white oak bed which took aeons to spray. That’s in pieces on the bench at the moment, waiting for delivery. I got so sick of waiting around this morning for the finish to dry, I headed off to get timber for the wardrobe.

Never been to this place before but they have a good reputation and have been in business for 200 years.So I arrive there, it’s not like my local timber merchants. You have to go in the showroom and ask for whatever it is you want to be lifted down from the orange shelving. I don’t mind the wait, this place has a few items of interest on display – I’m reminded of Lumberjocks looking at the pen turning blanks in cocobolo, purpleheart and zebrano.

They beckon me through, there is the bale of one inch mahogany (sapele) brought down for sifting through. I can’t believe it, and not in a good way. I make the Obi Wan Kenobi gesture, this is not the mahogany I’m looking for… it looks light, a guy in the store is good enough to run an offcut through the planer, yep, this is totally the wrong colour, salmon pink. It might be the right price but if I take it I will be making a rod for my own back when it comes to finishing this behemoth.

The gaffer comes over and we have a chat, he’s sympathetic to my plight ‘having been a maker of bespoke kitchens for years with six people working for him’, I ask him if he’ll fetch down the 2” stuff to look at. This is more like it, perfect in every respect, he gives me a hand sorting through the bale. Never just pick up a piece and hope for the best. We look for colour consistency, straightness, defects and warping. Nice to get someone else’s opinion on my selection too. He even rounds the cubic ft down as he tallies it up. I’m impressed.

Load the van, drive back 50 miles with the planks poking out the back, tailgate held as closed as it can go with a length of flex that was for something else. Hope I don’t get pulled by some narky cop for having an unsafe load (there was no danger of losing any of it), hope none of my bits and bobs in the back of the van get sucked out and scattered on the motorway behind me like in Hollywood, when a window gets shot out in a plane.

Get back cold but safe. I have it all unloaded and ready to go for the morning, just have to get that bed out the way, let the games commence…